Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird

Houston police officer Mike Hamby, 51, was
suspended in February following an alleged incident in which he was off-duty
and not in uniform. Witnesses reported that Hamby tossed a tear-gas grenade into
a group of rivals in a rodeo cooking contest. Hamby has 30 years of police
service and was a member of his union's board of directors. About 300 teams
compete in the popular barbecue cook-off; police were investigating whether
Hamby was trying to sabotage a competitor's food.

The Redneck Chronicles

(1) Timothy Walker, 48, was hospitalized in
Burlington, N.C., in February after he fell off the top of an SUV. He was on
top of the vehicle in an attempt to hold down two mattresses for the driver,
who apparently rounded a curve too fast. (2) Three people were hospitalized in
Bellevue, Wash., in January when their van stalled and then exploded when the
ignition was re-engaged. They were carrying two gallons of gasoline in an open
container and had been feeding the carburetor directly, through an opening in
the engine housing (between the seats) as the van was in motion. (It was not
reported why they were doing it that way.)

Every Vote Counts

Nicole Pugh, a resident of Washington, D.C.,
arrived at her polling station in November with the sole intention of casting a
vote for mayor. While voting, she noticed a line on the ballot asking her to
choose an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, even though no candidates were
listed. On a lark and with no knowledge of the office, she wrote in her own
name. That evening Pugh was informed that she had been elected, 1-0, to an
office that had been vacant for the previous 14 years—through apathy. (It's not
a paid position.)

Least Competent Criminals

Elusive Perp: Armed-robbery convict Edward
Nathan Jr. escaped from a Florida work-release center in 1983. Using the name
"Claude Brooks," among other identities, Nathan managed to avoid
police for the next 27 years. But he slipped up in December in Atlanta, when he
was arrested after being caught urinating in public. He was returned to Florida
and charged with escape.

The Feral Professor

In January, Tihomir Petrov, 43, a mathematics
professor at California State University, Northridge, was charged with
misdemeanors for allegedly urinating multiple times on the office door of a
colleague with who he had been feuding. (Petrov was identified by a hidden
camera that had been installed after the original puddles turned up.) Petrov is
the author of several scholarly papers, with titles such as "Rationality
of Moduli of Elliptic Fibrations With Fixed Monodromy."

A News of the Weird Classic

The German news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur
reported in November 1992 on Japanese inventor Kenji Kawakami's "New Idea
Academy," which features his own innovations and counts among his most
successful products a portable washing machine that straps onto the user's leg
(swirling the clothes with each step); a travel necktie with room for writing
utensils and a calculator; padded booties for cats so they can dust the floor
while walking around; and a "solar flashlight" that provides a strong
beam of light as long as the sun is shining.

Correction: Two weeks ago in this space, News of the
Weird fell for a hoax (for only the fifth time in 22 years, covering more than
20,000 stories). The seller of meat-flavored water, originally reported as a
legitimate entrepreneur by AOL News, is apparently engaged in elaborate
"performance art." I am duly embarrassed, and I apologize to readers.